Al-Qaida has urged jihadist militants across the world to attack economically sensitive Western targets, such as oil tankers and pipelines, in the first issue of its new English-language online magazine, Resurgence.

In the cover story, titled Besiege Them, the extremist group, once led by Osama bin Laden, lays out its new strategy against the US, Israel and their Western allies.

The article's author, al-Qaida spokesman Adam Yahiye Gadahn, a US national from California, says mujahideen should aim to "paralyse international trade for the enemy states or at the very east increase its costs, by targeting their cargo ships and merchant marines".

"Any of their ships are legitimate targets," the article reads.

Gadahn also urges jihadists to sabotage Western-run oil wells and mines in Muslim countries and "destroying pipelines before oil reaches the coast".

He also calls for a boycott of American and Jewish businesses as well as of companies he describes as "symbols of the rampant crusaders globalisation" such as Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Microsoft.

Banks and the financial markets are also listed as enemies of the Islamists that should avoid using them and resort to ancient transaction methods instead, reinstating gold and silver as "standard mediums of exchange".

The piece also calls for Israel to be "erased from the map", maintaining a two-state solution is an "unacceptable" solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and claims the new attacks are in retaliation against the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

In another article titled On Targeting The Achilles Heel Of Western Economies, the magazine details suggested locations for launching sea raids against oil tankers, such as the Strait of Hormuz linking the Gulf to the Indian Ocean.

"Simultaneous attack on western shipping or western oil tankers... would bring international shipping to a halt and create a crisis in the energy market," the article reads.

"Western workers working in oil companies in the Muslim world may be targeted," it adds.